What’s So Funny About Dementia?

One day I got a phone call from my mom who was coming to my house to pick up her grandsons. When she spoke on the other end of the phone, I knew something was wrong by the tone of her voice. She very nervously said, “Pammy, I don’t know where I am or where I am going.” I said, “Mom you are on your way to our house to pick up the boys. What street are you on now?” She didn’t know and had a difficult time finding a street sign to read. She was on the same street she had driven a hundred times before, but suddenly this day she was lost. I knew from that phone call that we had a problem. I also knew I shouldn’t let her drive the boys any more. She was losing her memory, which was not only frightening to her, but caused her to get very upset because she didn’t know what to do about it.

My dad and I knew we needed to find out what was happening to my mother’s memory, so we took her to her first neurologist’s appointment. While sitting in the waiting room for what seemed like forever, we found out people with this disease become easily agitated when having to wait. My mom was no exception. As we sat there with a room full of people who were all waiting for their appointments, the doctor’s office door opened and in walked a very over-weight woman. To everyone’s surprise, she was wearing hot pink spandex pants plastered with large purple flowers and a purple halter top with big pink flowers on it! It was quite a sight to see! All my mother needed was to take one look at her and in her loudest voice, so everyone could hear her, she asked, “Why would anyone that fat wear that tight of an outfit!” My dad and I were mortified! We were both looking for a chair to crawl under and acting like this rude woman was certainly not with us! The good news was the nurses behind the glass heard my mother’s outburst about the fat lady. They quickly decided my mom would need to go in the back to see the doctor before a fistfight broke out in their waiting room.

When the doctor had finally arrived, he asked my mother, “Mrs. Allen why did you come here today to see me? “She answered, “Well if you don’t know, then why in the world am I here!!!” He realized he didn’t need to do much assessment to know he has a new patient who was not only memory challenged, but highly agitated.

LESSON LEARNED: The sweetest people can become like a 2-year olds with no screen door to filter out what they are thinking or saying when they have this disease. Memory challenged people become agitated very easily, especially if they have to wait for anything.